


American Dream

by vivvav



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: F/M, Makoto Niijima Week, The AFR Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 07:09:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12127197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vivvav/pseuds/vivvav
Summary: Chaperoning the school trip means Makoto is in a foreign country with her new boyfriend. Not really sure what to do with this opportunity, she turns to Ann for advice.Written for Makoto Niijima Week. The prompt for Day 3 is "Friendships/Teammates".





	American Dream

**Author's Note:**

> It's still Makoto Week! More info here!  
> http://makotoniijimaweek.tumblr.com

**Art by[Hureno](http://hurenoshmureno.tumblr.com)**

 

* * *

It didn't faze Makoto when she learned Ren would be allowed to go on his class trip to Hawaii. True, she thought that his convict status would prevent him from leaving the country, but apparently Sojiro had vouched for him and five months of good behavior was enough for it to not be a concern to the legal system. It certainly came as a surprise when he told her he was going to Hawaii, but it was a pleasant one. Between his false title of “criminal” and all his Phantom Thieves work, Ren deserved a break, and a school trip was just the kind of normal teen thing his life was sorely lacking.

What did throw Makoto for a loop was when the school asked her to go on the trip. Apparently with the faculty being preoccupied by the police asking about the Phantom Thieves, several third-year students the school had deemed responsible enough were going, and of course Makoto was at the top of the list. Just because she had begun to re-evaluate her priorities did not mean that the honor student/student council president wasn’t a part of who she was. If she HAD tried slacking off or acting overtly rebellious, it would’ve felt incredibly unnatural to her. And, like with Ren, Makoto getting to go to Hawaii was a pleasant surprise. It wasn’t often that one was offered a free vacation out of the country. Makoto had enjoyed her school trips in the past. Although she wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted to do with her life, she figured she’d spend the rest of it in Japan, if not just in Tokyo herself, so any opportunity to see new places and become more worldly was a welcome one.

Of course, it wasn’t all fun and games. Or rather, it was, and that was the problem. Makoto had been asked to chaperone, but the school had arranged the trip so haphazardly that there wasn’t even a proper itinerary. Ordinarily school trips would be educational experiences, full of visits to local landmarks and guided tours of a foreign culture. In this case, the students were basically allowed to roam Waikiki as they pleased. There was really no framework for keeping watch over every Shujin Academy student on the trip. After spending her first day at the beach with Ren, Ryuji, and Ann, Makoto had heard of students taking bus rides to other parts of the island of O’ahu, and there were even whispers of her underclassmen sneaking into each other’s rooms or out of the hotel past curfew. Makoto knew she was supposed to be doing something about it, but honestly, she just didn’t know what. This whole chaperoning thing was so poorly thought through that she didn’t really have any way of controlling all the second-years. And besides, Makoto felt that there was another matter demanding her attention. She had tried to ignore it all day, but a text message from Eiko had brought it to the forefront of her mind.

 

> **Eiko:** heyaaaa~ hope ur havin fun n the USA! ur BF is there, right? dont do anything i wouldn’t do LOL
> 
> **Eiko:** so ya. stop bein ur stuffy old self an get n trouble together!  ☆⌒ ( ゝ。 ∂)

Makoto had no desire to get into any kind of trouble as Eiko had suggested, but she couldn’t ignore the facts: She and Ren had recently started dating, and now they were on a trip to a beautiful resort. There were only two more days to enjoy this scenery, so the window of opportunity for a romantic experience was limited. On the one hand, Makoto very much wanted to spend a day alone on the beach with Ren, just the two of them enjoying the beauty of Waikiki and each other’s company. On the other, that sounded like very serious and intimate date material, and Makoto worried that maybe it was too soon in their relationship.

Makoto wished she had somebody to talk to about this kind of thing. But she didn’t really have any friends in her own grade besides Eiko, and Eiko was too much of a “devil on your shoulder” type to have a thought-out conversation with about this kind of thing. Even ignoring the timezone differences, Sae would be no good to talk to for a number of reasons. The last time Sae had given Makoto womanly advice was when Makoto first got her period. Since then, Makoto was just expected to grow up and figure things out on her own, and if Sae learned she was wasting time on boys instead of her studies — especially boys with criminal records — she’d be absolutely furious.

Really, it seemed like there was only one person Makoto could talk to about this. And it had been one the people she least wanted to tell about her and Ren's relationship, but she was out of options here.

* * *

Getting some face time with Ann had been easy enough. Unfortunately, with the presence of Ren, Ryuji, and (unexpectedly) Yusuke, Makoto couldn’t exactly vocalize her problems at the moment. She needed to wait for an opportunity to ditch the boys.

“Oh shoot!” Ann yelled. “I forgot my sunscreen… I’m going to go buy another bottle at the convenience store.”

Bingo.

“I’ll go with you” Makoto said coolly. She began thinking of a bunch of reasons why she would accompany Ann: Because it was dangerous to wander off alone in a foreign country, because Makoto was a chaperone and had to make sure students were safe, because she needed to buy something from the convenience store (she’d figure out what when she got there). None of it was needed, as Ann never asked.

Makoto watched as Ann browsed the sunscreen bottles in the convenience store. She wondered if she should ask Ann for advice directly or wait for an opening.

“Hey,” Ann asked, “should I get SPF 15, or SPF 30?”

“Either is fine” Makoto said disinterestedly.

“Yeah, but like, one’s better, right?” Ann grabbed two bottles. She held the SPF 30 out towards Makoto. “This one probably protects against burns better, but if it’s twice as powerful, will that mean I get less of a tan?”

“SPF doesn’t quite work like that. It’s a measure of how long sunscreen would be effective, among other things.” Makoto pointed to the SPF 15 bottle in Ann’s other hand. “My research says that SPF 30 is only 4% more effective than SPF 15. Whichever you choose, the difference will be negligible.”

“Really?” Ann put the SPF 30 back on the shelf. “I’ll go with the 15 then. That’s probably enough for more of a tan without getting burned. I’ll be able to get a bunch of modeling gigs when we get back to Tokyo if I have a better tan!”

“That’s great…” Makoto stared past Ann, looking at the bottle she put back on the shelf.

“Makoto?” Ann waved her hand in front of Makoto’s face. “Are you ok?”

“Not exactly” Makoto said nervously, fiddling with her hairband.

“What’s wrong?”

“Ann, I need your advice with something. But-“

“Time out!” Ann stared at Makoto with wide eyes and a cocky grin. “Did I hear that right!? YOU need MY advice on something?”

“Yes, but it’s about a discrete matter that I’m not ready to share with the others, so I would appreciate it if you could keep quiet about it.” Makoto looked into Ann’s eyes pleadingly. “Can you do that?”

“I can keep a secret.” Ann nodded. “I promise.”

“Alright.” Makoto took a deep breath and stepped closer to Ann, barely an inch between them. She spoke quickly and in a hushed voice. “ Ren and I are dating.”

“SERIOUSLY!?” Ann’s yell was so loud that for a moment Makoto felt like she was with another certain blonde friend of hers. She was grateful that no other Shujin students were in the convenience store, because Ann’s outcry had caught the attention of all the other customers.

“Yes.” Makoto was still wincing from the sudden loudness.

“For how long!?” Ann’s volume level was back down to that of normal excitement.

“It’s only been a couple of weeks. First Ren was helping me learn how to connect with my peers, which turned into us investigating a girl in my class, and by the end of the investigation we realized that we were attracted to each other and decided to act on it.”

“‘Act on it!?’” Ann’s eyes were so wide Makoto felt like she was being stared down by the headlights of Morgana’s van form. She held her hand up to the side of her mouth and whispered. “Do you mean that you and Ren have had s-“

“Of course not!” Makoto’s face turned beet red. “We can barely even kiss without becoming completely overwhelmed!”

“You’ve kissed!?” Ann grabbed Makoto’s shoulders. “When!? How often!? What’s it like!? Is Ren a good kisser!? Does he use ton-“

“Ann, please! I can’t just-” Makoto groaned and covered her face with her hands, her fingers almost burning upon contact. “Can we talk about this somewhere more private?”

“Ok, sorry.” Ann crossed her arms. “But I still want details. Let’s get something to eat!”

“But the others are waiting for us at the beach.”

“Right…” Ann tapped her foot. “We’ll have to come up with some reason to ditch the boys.”

The girls returned to the beach to find Ren on the tail end of talking to some girl with fluffy hair. Makoto was pretty sure she was a third-year student, but didn’t actually know her. Wanting to get some alone time with Ann as fast as possible, she made up some excuse about free time for the students nearing its end (a patent falsehood, there were no planned activities and they were still hours away from the totally unenforceable curfew) and took off with Ann. Ann pulled over random people on the sidewalk and asked about good places to eat in perfect English. Makoto knew that Ann was bilingual, but it was still astonishing to see her friend flawlessly conversing with a bunch of foreigners. Makoto was no slouch in the English department herself, able to follow along with Ann’s conversations for the most part, but Makoto’s own English was still a bit sluggish and heavily accented. Ann’s natural Japanese accent completely vanished, replaced by — of all things — what Makoto believed to be a British accent. Eventually, the pair found themselves sitting down in the outside section of a nice restaurant, eating crab cakes with a view of the sea.

“Alright, talk” Ann said sternly. She sat stiffly in her chair, her eyes laser-focused on Makoto, her brow furrowed. Ann’s mannerisms somewhat reminded Makoto of Sae, which actually made it harder to take her seriously, since Makoto couldn’t think of two people more different than the girl before her and her older sister. “I wanna know all about you and Ren.”

“I’m afraid there’s not much to tell.” Makoto slowly picked at her lunch. “It’s like I said before; Ren and I started spending more and more time together, going to arcades and investigating Shujin students taking jobs in the red light district, and eventually it bloomed into romance.”

“And what’s that like?” Ann leaned forward on the table, her elbow almost landing directly in her food. “You guys have made out, right!?”

“Well, yes…” Makoto started to blush again. “It’s… pleasant. We haven’t done it very much, though. So far, our dates have been about us trying to get used to each others’ presence in the context of a relationship.”

“That sounds… exciting?” Ann’s mouth was smiling, but her eyes were confused. It was clear to Makoto that her choice of words wasn’t exactly the most romantic-sounding thing in the world. “What exactly do you do when you’re together?”

“It varies.” Makoto’s cheeks returned to their normal color. So long as Ann wasn’t bugging her for the really intimate details, talking about her relationship with Ren wasn’t so hard. It was just nice to get everything off of her chest and actually talk about it with somebody. “Sometimes we have study sessions. Other times we share a meal or go to the arcade. We’ve taken in a movie once or twice as well.”

“I have to admit, I’m kinda jealous.” Ann looked at the ocean wistfully. “I wish I had somebody to hold hands with during a romantic movie.”

“Well, that’s…” Makoto twiddled her thumbs and directed her attention to the ocean as well. “We don’t watch romantic films together.”

“You don’t?” Ann looked back at Makoto. “What do you watch?”

“Action movies.” Makoto smiled very slightly. “Films about yakuza, mostly.”

“Oh, lame.” Ann’s face contorted with disgust. “I didn’t think Ren would be the kind of boyfriend who’d make a girl sit through stuff like that.”

“Actually…” Makoto’s face turned red yet again. “I chose those movies.”

“What!?” Ann burst into laughter. “Oh my gosh! I can totally see it!”

“What’s that supposed to mean!?”

“Well, it’s like…” Ann wiped a tear away from her eye. “All that scariness in the Metaverse has to come from somewhere, right?”

“That’s, ah… Hereditary.”

“Huh?”

“Intense anger runs in my family.” Makoto sighed. “My father had his moments, and Sis regularly has hers.”

“Yikes. I bet your sister would totally flip if she learned you were dating Ren.”

“Yes, especially with Ren's record. She’d probably attempt to get him kicked out of school if she learned about our relationship.” A determined look came to Makoto's eyes, the kind usually reserved for Phantom Thief matters. “I must keep it a secret from her by any means necessary.”

“Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?” Ann cleaved a crab cake in two with her fork and shoved half of it in her mouth. She took a moment to swallow before continuing. “You wanted my help with something, right?”

“No, Sis doesn’t really take a strong enough interest in my personal life for us to risk getting caught.” Sadness flashed across Makoto’s face for a moment. Noticing pity in Ann’s eyes, Makoto cleared her throat, taking a neutral expression and sitting up perfectly straight. All of a sudden, Ann felt less like she was having lunch with a friend and more like she was in a business meeting of some sort. “I was hoping to pick your brain about some opportunities our current circumstances present.”

“Okay?” Ann clearly had no idea what Makoto was talking about.

“Right now we are in Hawaii. This is a popular location for romantic getaways, which presents Ren and I with a chance to have some unique experiences that we may not get again for a very long time. But at the same time, I cannot help but wonder if perhaps spending time together in such a locale is too ambitious given how young our relationship is.”

“Uh-huh…” Ann finished off her lunch, dabbing around her mouth with her napkin as she swallowed the final bite. She slowly picked up her water glass and drained it, cleansing the leftover taste of crab from her mouth. “That’s dumb, Makoto.”

“Excuse me?” It was hardly the first time anybody disagreed with Makoto, but “dumb” wasn’t something she was often accused of being. It certainly brought her back down from the professional demeanor she was trying to exude.

“What does it matter WHERE you guys are? You’re in Hawaii! You should TOTALLY be doing stuff together! Don’t waste time asking dumb questions, just enjoy the moment!” Ann rose to her feet, angrily slamming her hands on the table. “Do you wanna go back home full of ‘Oh, I wish I’d done this and that’!? You grab that boy of yours by his messy hair and DRAG him along by force on a romantic adventure that every other girl on this island can only dream of if you have to!”

“I see…” Makoto was more than a little overwhelmed by Ann’s passion. If she was being completely honest with herself, she had hoped Ann would encourage such behavior, but she didn’t expect the younger girl to get this excited about it. “But what should we do? There are so many things to do on the island, and so little time!”

“Then we’ll just have to check them out ourselves!” Ann grabbed Makoto’s wrist and pulled her out of her chair, dragging her away from the table. “Come on! Let’s go do recon for your perfect date!”

“Ann, wait!” Makoto tried pulling the blonde back to the table. “We still need to pay the check!”

* * *

Ann dragged Makoto around Waikiki, visiting as many tourist attractions as they could cram into the afternoon. First they visited the Waikiki Aquarium, followed shortly by the Honolulu Zoo. At both establishments, Makoto took time to read the signs for every exhibit they passed, trying to test her English skills and learn as much as she could about the various animals on display. Ann was more interested in deciding which animal represented each of their friends. Makoto tried to disregard the game, but found she couldn’t disagree with Ann’s assessment that the chimpanzees were very similar to Ryuji. After much prodding, Makoto concluded that the perched stance and big round eyes of the common barn owl were reminiscent of Futaba.

Next, the two took a tour of ‘Iolani Palace. Makoto found the history of the last royals of Hawaii fascinating. Ann was completely taken away by the lavish surroundings, regularly ignoring the tour guide to tell Makoto how she absolutely HAD to bring Ren here, how the Palace was so beautiful, and how she often dreamed of living in a place like this. The longer Ann went on, the more she devolved from trying to help Makoto find something fun to do with Ren into going on about her own desires for a fairy tale romance. By the end of the tour, Makoto practically had to drag Ann out of the palace, lest she get arrested trying to find a way to stay there forever.

By the time the sun had gone down, Ann and Makoto found themselves at a luau dinner. Ann was completely captivated by the fire dancers.

“Do you think I could do that?” Ann asked.

“Do what?” Makoto looked at Ann with concern. “Fire dancing?”

“Yeah!” Ann’s eyes remained fixed on the performance. “Like, in the Metaverse. What if I used magic to set my whip on fire during fights?”

Makoto did not like that idea. Ann still suffered from some accuracy problems with her whip, and had come dangerously close to hitting her teammates on more than one occasion. The idea of her trying to get fancy with a flaming whip did not inspire feelings of comfort.

“I think you should continue to fight as you have been” Makoto said. “Even with Iwai-San’s discount, Ren still pays a lot of money for our equipment. We don't want to have to replace your whip because you burned it to cinders.”

“Alright.” Ann pouted, giving Makoto the side eye. “So, you figure out what you ’n’ Ren are gonna do together?”

“No.” Makoto slouched over. “Everything we’ve done today has been fascinating, but I’m not certain that any of it is particularly romantic.”

“What, you didn’t think those Ryuji-chimps set the mood for romance?” Ann smirked.

“No.” Makoto started sulking “Maybe I should forget the whole thing. If I wanted the perfect foreign date, I should have planned ahead for it. Why didn’t I think to do research ahead of time!?”

“Yeah,” Ann said sarcastically, “everyone knows the key to romance is planning everything and never being spontaneous ever.”

“Excuse me?”

“You know, that’s why all the best romance stories are about following schedules and doing what’s expected.” Ann smirked at Makoto. “That's EXACTLY what love is.”

“Are you saying I should ask Ren out without any kind of plan!?”

“Duh!" Ann poked Makoto’s forehead. “Stop overthinking this! You’re in Hawaii! If you and Ren are meant to work, then he’ll be happy spending time with you no matter what you do. Just be spontaneous!”

“That’s not exactly my forte, but if nothing else, I suppose it will take me out of my comfort zone.”

“That’s the spirit!” Ann patted Makoto’s back.

“Yes! We’ll be spontaneous! It will be fun!” Makoto pulled out her phone. “Now, to draft an invitation…”

**Author's Note:**

> As is usually the case, I am dissatisfied when writing Ann. This time it was less "I don't have a hold of the character" and more how this particular story evolved. My original concept was supposed to be a purely friendship-based fic with no mention of Akira/Makoto. I just wanted to have Makoto and Ann take a girls day and play tourist in Hawaii. But I didn't really know enough about Hawaii to think of a full story around that, so I had to introduce this other element instead which wound up dominating the piece.
> 
> Also I dunno if you can tell, but writing Eiko's texts was physically painful for me.
> 
> Update: This fic has been changed to use Joker's real name.


End file.
